(Video link here.) Ippitsuryu is a rare Japanese artistic tradition that has been practiced for generations largely by the same family. The mythical dragon, considered to be the embodiment a deity and the source of all animals, is rendered in a single astonishing stroke that is later embellished and refined. This video shows it in its most elemental form as a brush patiently, serenely twists and turns until the image is complete.

The brush is wielded by Fumiko Takaso in tiny, carefully calibrated movements that never leave the page, as it moves on its winding, river-like way —amazingly far —until the last bit of ink is used.

We know that the ease of this astonishing single stroke-that-became-a-dragon is the result of intense practice and many failures.

A perfect meditation.

Just for the hell of it, we opened the tiny, ever great Zen Art for Meditation and found this haiku (bibliosophia?):

Snow-swallowed valley:
The river alone painted
A black, winding line.

via the great Spoon & Tomago